Logo Redesign: Cardtorial

Sometimes a client has a logo that is headed in the right direction, but could use a professional designer’s touch. Rather than throwing it out and starting from scratch, or building a website around an almost-great logo, we’ve begun experimenting with offering logo redesigns as a budget-friendly way to polish up a decent logo.

One of our first willing guinea pigs was Cardtorial! For a logo redesign/refresh we keep a thing or two about the original logo – whatever is working well and that the client is happy with. We’ll keep the icon, the font, the color scheme. Our aim is for the final logo to look familiar to existing customers, and be an upgrade rather than a departure.

Logo redesign before and after

Yvonne had created a logo that she liked well enough, but she wasn’t sure it was ready for the big leagues (and you know I’m out of my league when I start throwing sports metaphors around, ha ha). Yvonne told me:

I do like my logo. I’m tied to the idea of the fox and don’t need a logo from scratch. My current logo was inspired by my first card. One of my favorite quotes from Le Petit Prince.

The idea of a refresh and a few fonts / a color scheme to work with and stick to sounds great. I haven’t had a consistent template. I do like clean shapes / silhouettes (basically anything that easily translates to the laser).

My background isn’t in design so I really do enjoy collaborating and having a trusted pair of eyes working on things with me.

Lauren was happy to oblige, and sent over these initial ideas:

Yvonne liked #3 the best, and Lauren showed it alongside some of her items, so she could see how it looked in context:

While it doesn’t look wildly different, the new logo is so much more sophisticated and clean than the original. The original logo was bulky and unbalanced, and Lauren was able to to tame and improve it with just a touch of restraint and simplicity.

Lauren’s thoughts on the change:

If you compare it to your existing site logo, it looks significantly cleaner, brighter, and more modern. The tracking [space between the characters] adjustment really lets that beautiful, heavy sans-serif sing, and the fox is leveraged better as a design element rather than “punctuation.” The overall effect is very polished and modern, but not in a way that’s too aloof or cold for your friendly product line. The two dots almost read as “party/confetti” to me, which is why I think this version looks right at home with your goods.

Cardtorial website, before & after

We also redesigned the Cardtorial website. You should watch Yvonne’s video; it’s super great!

Logo redesigns

We offer logo redesigns as standalone projects, so please get in touch if you’re interested in having us take a look at your logo!

About the Author

Hello, I'm Arianne! I am the head storyteller, idea hatcher, and yaysayer here at Aeolidia. I started making websites for friends in 1997, and never lost interest in building online homes for fascinating people. I have a great boss (me!) and I'm unafraid to play hooky to head out on an adventure. Some day I'll tell you about the time when, as a marine biology student, I was bitten by a baby elephant seal.